Trump's infrastructure "fantasy": Ditch mass transit for self-driving cars, private highways

While President-elect Donald Trump rarely spoke about infrastructure projects during the 2024 campaign, especially compared to the grand promises of his earlier campaigns, Trump's allies plan to revive infrastructure planning from his first administration. Instead, it's likely to mean reduced funding for public transit, increased investment in autonomous or "self-driving" vehicles and contracting out major infrastructure projects to private investors. The Biden administration, she writes, used “the department’s tools to get people to take transit and drive electric vehicles instead of helping people to choose the transportation options that suit them best.” Project 2025 advocates a "tech-neutral approach to addressing any emerging transportation technology," which seems to mean steering policy back toward private cars and fossil-fuel consumption. Kevin DeGood, director for infrastructure at the Center for American Progress, told Salon that even if the technology to create such a system existed, "The vision put forward of ditching public transit and pushing for mass ride-hailing is fundamentally flawed.” Trips in cars hired through ride-hailing apps, whether a human driver is involved are not, are “more expensive" than any conceivable form of public transit, DeGood said, and "also massively inefficient." When it comes to slashing funding for public transit while investing in speculative public-private partnerships for new infrastructure projects, Tomer suggested that the first Trump administration could serve as a lesson.